31. Tess
TESS
Nash parked the Escalade toward the back of the ShopSmart parking lot, leaving a couple of spaces between us and the next car.
I pushed open my door before either of them could grab it for me.
Having sat still for all of ten minutes, Blade was bouncing off the walls. She clapped her hands together and we crossed the parking lot.
Running ahead, she saw an elderly woman struggling to lift her groceries into her car. “Ma’am, can I help you?”
“Oh, yes. Thank you, young man.” Relief washed over the older woman’s face.
Looking back at Nash and I, Blade winked as she loaded the canvas bags into the trunk. By the time we were walking past them, Blade was finished helping and already running up ahead again.
Parents shepherded their kids to cars, couples reordered their grocery bags, and Nash and Blade wandered toward the automatic front doors of the store.
How the fuck did they look so normal?
After seeing what kind of freaky shit they got up to in the park, I felt my throat tighten thinking about how many times I may have been in the same room as them. How unassuming they’d been to me then. How odd it was to know there were wolves in sheep's clothing living amongst us.
But it was the man standing beside the swinging doors that sent a chill down my spine.
“He will be our safety from the storm. The Messenger begs we hear his word.” The cloth draped over his body was more of a sack than an outfit.
Holding out a pamphlet toward me, he stared deep into my soul. “He will find his Chosen.”
My fingers closed around the brochure, Nash’s hand on my back guiding me past the odd preacher and into the store. Looking down at it, I tried to take it all in. Scrawled handwriting marked the margins next to printed words. A grainy picture of The Messenger on a neighbor's stoop drew my eyes.
Blade snatched the paper from my hand, crumpling it without so much as a glance and chucking it into the black garbage can. “Messenger bullshit. Religion is for morons.”
My instinct was to fight it. But from the eye roll that Nash couldn’t hide, I realized this was probably normal for Blade.
Sure, the preaching was weird. Certainly bizarre for a town like Valemont.
But not everyone who followed a religion was as rigid as some of its loudest voices. Plenty of people practiced their faith in reasoned, kind ways — across every type of religion.
Still, I understood her disdain. I’d grown up around plenty of religious zealots, and was one myself for a time. Just enough to survive. After I became a ward of the state, I was shuffled around from different foster homes to group homes and back again.
Until I landed at Heirs of Promise Group Home.
I stayed there for a while: a place where troubled teens sent by concerned parents lived alongside foster kids. I was one of the latter.
There, was safer to lean into the hyper-Christian stuff. I got away with more if I played along. But not every kid was willing to do it.
A part of me had been jealous of those kids: the girls who didn’t want to pick a role to play. They were more honest than me. More bold.
I wonder what they’d think about me now. Bet stripper wasn’t on their bingo card.
Nash pulled out a shopping cart from the interior carrel and walked into the store.
First up: produce.
A section that could hardly capture Blade’s attention as she jogged ahead. Leaning on the edge of the produce case, Blade looked through the most exotic fruit she could find. Not that this small town grocery store had much of a diversity of fresh produce.
I walked alongside Nash, who diligently walked each aisle and quietly looked through each pile of vegetables for the best one.
The top rack of her cart was a full spectrum of colorful produce, everything from fruit to leafy greens.
As my eyebrow lifted in surprise, Nash’s deep voice answered my internal question. “Takes a lot of good food to have a body like this.” A slight smirk played at the corners of her lips.
Nodding, I wanted to change the subject. I knew if I thought about how she looked, the way her muscles bulged and strained, that my face would flush from the memories of being in her studio.
From the berry section, Nash grabbed a fresh box of strawberries. She searched for the brightest red she could find.
“What’s the deal with her and the pamphlet?” I nodded toward Blade who was now picking up gourmet cheeses from the deli fridge.
Nash looked up from her inspection and shrugged. “It’s just how she grew up.”
“That’s it?” Raising my eyebrow, I knew she was avoiding something. Very few people had strong reactions to religion like that without at least one bad experience.
Even so, now wasn’t the time to push. I’d ask Blade about it. Maybe.
And then we moved to the baking section. There, Blade grabbed premade pastries and piled them into the cart. Cosmic brownies and honey buns stacked high.
Reaching low, Nash grabbed cocoa powder, flour, and sugar. “If you need anything, Sweet Lamb, throw it in the cart.”
“Will do.” I nodded. Crossing my arms, I knew I wouldn’t go crazy.
I wasn’t sure if they would cover my food or if I would need to settle up with them later.
But my accounts were nearly empty without having taken a shift for over two weeks.
After my credit card payments, I rarely had enough left for groceries to begin with.
Nash checked the ingredients on the cocoa powder, looking at distribution locations and where the beans were sourced.
In the dairy section, Blade added a few pints of ice cream to her stash of sweets. Now that was too enticing to pass up on. I grabbed myself a pint of Chocolate Fudge Brownie and placed it in an empty corner of the cart.
I’ve gotta have a few singles in my wallet.
A young man used his rollator down the aisle, struggling to grab the freezer door while keeping his balance.
Blade zipped across the freezer section. “Can I get that for you?”
“Oh, yeah. Thanks, dude.” The guy moved closer, reaching inside and taking a couple bags of frozen broccoli.
“You got it.”
Biting the inside of my cheek, I tried to make sense of it. It felt impossible that two normal, kind people did what my Freaks did. By day, they were helpful citizens. And by night, they were murderous, masked killers who wanted to have me any way they pleased.
As we approached the checkout, Nash slowed at an end cap and grabbed a few candles from the birthday section. Tossing a number two and a number five into the heap of groceries in our cart, Nash pushed forward — her forearms straining as she shoved the heavy cart on.
My brow furrowed, looking between the two of them. “Whose birthday is it?”
Blade zipped past, snapping her fingers. “Cyrus. On Friday.”
“Friday?”
Fuck. Fright Night.
Cyrus will want a special present. Her night alone with me.
And I needed to make sure that didn’t happen.